Blimp issues proclamations from the Turkish bath, wrapped in his towel and brandishing some mundane weapon to emphasize his passion on some issue of current affairs. Red faced with rage and emotion, his pronouncements are often confused.[2] Blimp's phrasing often includes direct contradiction, as though upon starting the sentence he did not know how the sentence was to end. His initial words were always a part of an emotional catchphrase. For instance: "Gad, Sir! Mr Lansbury is right. The League of Nations should insist on peace — except of course in the case of war.", or: "Gad, Sir! Lord Bunk is right. The government is marching over the edge of an abyss, and the nation must march solidly behind them." Blimp is usually depicted speaking to a cartoon version of David Low, the cartoon's creator, and Blimp's comments are not infrequently directed at the opinions of Lord Beaverbrook, the owner of the newspaper the cartoon appeared in.

Blimp was a satire on the reactionary opinions of the British establishment of the 1930s and 1940s. The cartoon was intended to criticize attitudes of isolationism, impatience with the concerns of common people, and a lack of enthusiasm for democracy. These were attitudes which Low, a New Zealander, considered as being common in British politics.[1] Although Low described his character Blimp as "a symbol of stupidity", he lessened the insult to the British ruling class by adding that "stupid people are quite nice".

The character has survived in the form of a clichéd phrase – very reactionary opinions are characterised as "Colonel Blimp" statements.

George Orwell and Tom Wintringham made especially extensive use of the term "Blimps" to refer to this type of military officer, Orwell in his articles[3] and Wintringham in his books How to Reform the Army and People's War. In his 1941 essay "The Lion and the Unicorn", Orwell referred to two important sub-sections of the middle class, one of which was the military and imperialistic middle class, nicknamed the Blimps, and characterised by the "half-pay (i.e retired) colonel with his bull neck and diminutive brain". He added that they had been losing their vitality during the past thirty years, "writhing impotently under the changes that were happening".[4]

During 1943 the team Powell and Pressburger wrote, produced and directed a movie titled The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Filmed during wartime, the movie portrayed the life of an admirable British officer named Clive Candy. The story encouraged the audience to accept that though the officer was honorable, with time his opinions had become dated, and that winning a modern war required irregular means. The classic British movie featured Roger Livesey with the title role and Deborah Kerr. The "Blimp" character was not actually called "Blimp" other than in the title. Although the movie had an anti-Nazi bias, the movie's sympathetic presentation of a German officer, played by Anton Walbrook, caused Prime MinisterWinston Churchill to seek to ban the movie.[citation needed] However, the movie was not banned.